2 single coil pickups for neck position of homemade baritone guitar

[pjd3]

OK, so, this is a bit of a different situation, and not one I saw coming.
What happened was, I built a baritone guitar (28.625" scale) and had purchased a Dimarzio Humbucker from Hell for the neck position with series/parallel/cut coil switch. I had originally chosen this pickup for its relatively high resonant frequency and liked a clean sound video I heard on youtube. As it turned out, this combination brought about an acute issue with a couple of mid and high/mid frequencies being very exacerbated to the level where even surgical use of parametric EQ only minimized the issue, improved but not eradicated.

After lots of talking to people in real life and forums, and listening, I came down to the theory that using pups with vintage response was risky and It would be better to try a set up pickups that were known to be far more smooth in there frequency response. After a good deal of looking into this and listening to an extensive number of pickup clips and vids, I ordered a set of Bill Lawrence Strat Microcoils. It was apparent to me that they didn't accentuate any particular frequency or frequency range like most of the pups I would use for standard strat or tele. Many people wouldn't use the microcoils just for that reason, claiming they were "too sterile" or "too clean" or, not vintage sounding enough. What odd is that I do not hear those same accentuated frequencies acoustically when playing the guitar.

My question is, since I have another open space for another single coil in the neck, I am pondering a second single coil that has the property of being relatively flat in freq response but, is different in tone enough from the microcoil to perhaps add some versatility and not just be totally redundant. There will be a switch to put them in parallel which will shift the response and might work nice in series with one of the mid or bridge single coils.

I was thinking maybe a Lace Sensor Gold neck or, maybe a Bill Lawerence L45 noiseless with the two stainless steel rails. But, I don't know if the L45 is just too similar in tone to the microcoils.

I would suspect that the Lace Gold in the neck might enough variance from the microcoil to make it worth the slot.

Thanks for reading, strat microcoils set should be in this week.

Best,
PHil D (pjd3)

 

[pjd3]

Dont worry about it.

I'm going to order a Lace Gold Neck for the other Neck slot. It appears to not be peaky but is more rounded like a traditional, warmer maybe than the microcoils. My other possibility was a Lace Alumitone as those are toted as being fairly flat and not having peaks in the upper mids.

Thank you,
Phil D

 

[Mincer]

Well, most singles aren't flat at all, but my suggestion would have been something like a Cool Rails. It is flatter than a single coil, and also dead quiet, too.

 

[pjd3]

Hey Mincer, thanks for coming by.

I do get that there probably isn't any such thing as a flat single coil, however I hear that Bill Lawrence did set out to make the Microcoils with a very high resonant peak that would help the freq range below that be much flatter. Its funny to me. I do not hear any strange emphasis of frequencies in the guitar unplugged but plugged into an amp or preamp there are really peaky things happening at a few mid and upper midrange frequencies that are really hard to pinpoint and eq to shape. I'm really hoping these microcoils help to alleviate that some. Many have mentioned that the vintage style pickups can or do have a lot of peaks and valleys going on that gives them their color or sound. I think I found that out firsthand.

I'll probably grab a Lace gold neck as those sound a bit more relaxed in freq response as well. This is all probably going to be a big experiment with surprising results.

Thank you,
Best
Phil D (pjd3)